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Unseasonable cold greeted delegates to the U.N. conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, Nov. 28. They were chilled more by the impending collapse of one of the most brazen scams in the history of the world.

The warnings of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world faced doom from anthropogenic (man-made) global warming were based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, the IPCC chairman claimed. But when Canadian writer Donna LaFramboise checked the 18,531 references in the 2007 report, she found 5,587 were newspaper and magazine articles written by non-experts, unpublished theses and pamphlets produced by environmental groups.

IPCC reports supposedly were written by leading scientists. Ms. LaFromboise found many authors were graduate students selected more for political connections and "diversity" than for expertise. This explains, in part, why these reports contain so many factual errors.

Fraud is a better explanation. The blog New Nostradamus of the North reports that Dr. Nils-Axel Morner asked a British member of the IPCC in 2003 why the IPCC altered data to indicate sea levels were rising when they were not. "We had to, otherwise there would be no trend," he told Dr. Morner.

In a review of Ms. Lafromboise's book, which was published electronically in October, Judith Curry, chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, said she "feels duped" by the IPCC, which she supported until December 2009. That month someone posted on the Internet 1,000 emails in which prominent scientists discussed how to hide a decline in global temperatures, evade Freedom of Information Act requests and smear scientists who disagreed with them. The U.N. climate change conference a couple of weeks later then flopped, in part because of the flap those emails caused.

Just in time for the Durban conference, 5,000 more emails have been leaked. In this batch, scientists admit the science supporting anthropogenic global warming is weak and depends on data manipulation. They conspire with politicians and journalists to conceal this from the public. "What if climate change appears to be just a multi-decadal natural fluctuation?" wrote one. "They'll kill us, probably."

That's what "climate change" is. Temperatures in the lower atmosphere this October were just one- tenth of one degree Celsius warmer than in 1979, according to data from weather satellites. Temperatures haven't risen in 13 years, according to measurements from ground stations. Data from tree rings and ice cores show no warming since 1940.

Few journalists have reported these facts. That's why so many accepted for so long the preposterous assertions of the scammers. The most preposterous is that carbon dioxide -- which is to plants what oxygen is to us -- is a pollutant.

For some, the scam is about power. Politicians saw in the regulation of CO2 an opportunity to control people's lives.

For others, it's about money. Scammers sought to cash in on carbon credits and government subsidies. More than 80 percent of the $20.5 billion in loan guarantees made by the Department of Energy has gone to firms either run or owned by financial supporters of President Barack Obama, according to a new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer.

Some, like Solyndra, already are bankrupt. Most never will create many jobs or produce much energy.

Alarmism has helped make former Vice President Al Gore a centimillionaire, though most of what he's said has proved to be false.

The leading alarmist among American scientists, James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been as spectacularly wrong as Mr. Gore. Mr. Hansen said in a 1988 interview the sea level off Manhattan would rise 10 feet within 40 years (if atmospheric CO2 doubled). In the 23 years since, the sea level has risen just 2.5 inches. Sea levels fell over the past year.

But alarmism has been good for his pocketbook. Mr. Hansen failed to report $1.6 million in outside income, much of it in violation of NASA's rules, according to Power Line's John Hinderaker.

There never was a consensus among scientists in support of anthropogenic global warming. Some signed on because that was the only way to get governments to support their research. As the gulf widens between climate change models and real world data, more are skeptical.

The scam is threatened most by the global financial crisis. Cash-strapped European governments are cutting costly subsidies for solar and wind. So attendance is down in Durban, and faces are long. A chill wind is blowing. It will power no windmills.

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